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Sunday, March 12, 2017

Seminar Talk of SS leader Franz Six on "the Physical Elimination of the Jewry in the East"

Author: Hans Metzner

On 3 and 4 April 1944, the German Foreign Office and the RSHA organized in a Hotel in Karpacz in Lower Silesia a seminar on anti-Jewish measures and propaganda outside the German Reich. One of the lead speakers was Franz Six, previously head of the
RSHA office VII (Ideological Research and Evaluation) and leader
of the so called Vorkommando Moskau of Einsatzgruppe B. Although details on the Jewish measures from the talks of Eberhard von Thadden and Heinz Ballensiefen were "not taken up into the protocol because of their secret character" (accompanying letter from Rudolf Schleier of 20 April 1944), the Nazi policy was indicated in the protocol of the talk from Six, who explained that "Jewry in Europe has ended its biological and at the same time political role" and that "the physical elimination of the Jewry in the East deprives Jewry of its biological reserves."

Copy of the protocol of the seminar of the experts on Jews of the German missions in Europe of 3 and 4 April 1944 from the German Foreign Office Informationsstelle XIV:

"Seminar of the experts on the Jews of the German missions in Europe on 3 and 4 April 1944 in Karpacz/Giant Mountains, Hotel Sanssouci
...
Envoy Prof. Dr. Six: The political structure of world Jewry
...
The Jewry in Europe has ended its biological and at the same time political role.
...
The physical elimination of the Jewry in the East deprives Jewry of its biological reserves."

(Yad Vashem Archives, O.18/117, p. 1, 7 - 8, my translation, a full transcription of the protocol and supplementary correspondence is available here, full English translation from IMT here)

18 comments:

Wow. Thanks for those scans (do they come from the YVA?). A full english translation can be found in Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression ("Red Series"), Nuremberg, Germany (1945-1946), vol. VI, 3319-PS, p. 10-20 (12-13 for the "physical" parts), which of course is online:http://www.loc.gov/rr/frd/Military_Law/pdf/NT_Nazi_Vol-VI.pdf

"Six [an academic] admitted having been present and having addressed the meeting but denied making the remarks attributed to him." - NMT judgment on Six [v.4:524] which states "the Tribunal cannot conclude with scientific certitude that Six took an active part in the murder program of that organization", meaning EG B, which he was in for just two months, spending just a month a the front whilst heading a mission to raid Russian archives.

Here's a list of the five defence exhibits submitted to the NMT EG trial about Six's speech at the conference:

http://fotos.fotoflexer.com/4f7ff5b94d678ce43dec004580ada3cc.jpg

I don't suppose there's much point in asking you what they say.

Most of the attendees at this conference were non-German civilians!

If anyone believes that one of the relatively few SS men who really knew what occurred at Treblinka and Babi Yar* would be permitted to go give a speech about the gassings and grave clearings to a bunch of foreign civilians, even if they were all committed antisemities, they need to rein in their gullibility asap.

* which obviously doesn't include Six, Ballensiefen, and von Thadden.

"Embassy-counsellor v. Thadden speaks about the Jewish-political situation in Europe and about the state of the anti-Jewish, executive measures. The speaker gave an outline why the Zionist Palestine solution or other similar solutions must be rejected and the deportation of the Jews to the Eastern-territories, carried out."

Why was he arguing against other "solutions" if he knew the "final solution" had been decided on nearly 2.5 years ago, and, supposedly told his audience as much in the *secret* part of his speech?

I was present at the meeting of Information Office XII in Krumhuebel. I gave a lecture on the organization of world Jewry. I presented in detail the contents of this lecture when I was in the witness box at Nuremberg. I would refer to this document. According to a piece of evidence produced as a copy, I am said to have called the aim of German policy on Jews "the physical extermination of Jewry." With the same arguments that I advanced then, I challenge the authenticity of this piece of evidence also today. As far as I know, the participants at that meeting were exclusively from the German representations abroad. There were no Specialists on Jewish Affairs. I remember that Ambassador Schleier and Legation Counsellor von Thadden were present. Eichmann was not present, nor was anyone from the Security Police. As far as I can remember, the purpose of the meeting was to counter Jewish propaganda abroad. The so- called Final Solution of the Jewish Question was not discussed at this meeting. I believe that, apart from Schleier and von Thadden, the participants in the meeting did not have information about the current situation of the Final Solution.

Why did you neglect to cite Westemeier's source? Which is:https://www.amazon.de/SS-im-Kreuzverh%C3%B6r-Robert-Kempner/dp/B003YKAYPE

Old sticky fingers himself! Was his mate Rolf Wartenberg present for interrogation, was he threatening the subject with his broom-handle again?

"Franz Six posited a contradictory defense in which he maintained that while he was a professor and knew nothing of the murder of the Jews, he still tried his best to be released from duty as head of a Kommando [141]. [...] 141. Testimony, Six, October 24, 1947, in Trial, roll 3, 1325-1335."

"[Six ...] testified that he had committed no crimes in the Soviet Union; rather, he stated he was a university professor, sent to Russia to collect archives, protect churches and to instill culture in the local population. Never, he claimed, had he received or carried out the Führerbefehl to murder."- H. Earl, The Nuremberg SS-EG Trial, 1945-1958, p.209 & 251.

Okay, I was wrong about that, they were all German/Austrians, even if some were civilians, and that most of them were stationed in foreign countries.

The point still stands though; there's no way on Earth these people would have been told about the most secret of Reich matters.

Dr. Rudolf Kuehn was a judge during the nazi-era and following the war he was an assistant defence counsel for the industrialist Heinrich Korschan during the NMT Krupp trial; the following quote presumably originates from something he said or an affidavit he submitted to the trial.

During his final statement at the NMT Pohl trial, Rudolf Scheide's defence counsel Karl Hoffman said the following whilst demonstrating that the murder of Jews was a closely guarded secret.

The former judge at a court of Appeals (Oberlandesgerichtsrat in the Reich Ministry of Justice), Dr. Rudolf Kuehn, declared:

"In 1942 or 1943, at any rate at a time when Jews were being evacuated from Berlin to the East, a man was reported for spreading the rumor that Jews were to be killed by gassing in the East. I considered this allegation to be monstrous and untrue. Nevertheless, I inquired at the Gestapo whether these allegations were based on some actual occurrences which would make the execution of proceedings seem risky. I had made the experience that such inquiries brought out facts which explained the origin of such rumors, which is important for the judgment of the matter. My inquiries received a negative reply from the office of the Secret State Police, confirming that this rumor had been invented without factual proof." [NMT 5:925]

Usually you accept this matter was top secret, if you're discussing euphemisms in letters or secret adjustments to crematoria plans, but that's out the window now you're trying to claim *everything* was discussed openly at this conference.

> The point still stands though; there's no way on Earth these people would have been told about the most secret of Reich matters.

That's not what the evidence says.

> murder of Jews was a closely guarded secret.

I guess they decided that at this point of time there was no sense in keeping the general truth from their Judenreferenten and Ariesierungsberater who had to pave way to expanding the reach of the Judeocide.

> Usually you accept this matter was top secret, if you're discussing euphemisms in letters or secret adjustments to crematoria plans, but that's out the window now you're trying to claim *everything* was discussed openly at this conference.

The context in 1944 is clearly not the same as it was in 1941-42. These Germans are losing the war and facing the threat of what they see as a new Jewish world order. They convene this conference essentially to lash out and spew antisemitic hate. No need for euphemisms at a hate meeting. Moreover, the wording about "biological reserves" echoes Wannsee, so there were clearly audiences, even in Jan 42, where this could be discussed openly. Luther was at Wannsee, on behalf of the Foreign Office, so a door of knowledge was already being opened beyond the inner circle and into the foreign legations. The foreign legations could also clearly see what was happening in their countries of work, such as Richter in Romania, who notes on 17.10.41 that:

"According to information today from director General Lecca, 110,000 Jews are being evacuated from Bukovina and Bessarabia into two forests in the Bug River Area. As far as he could learn, this action is based upon an order issued by Marshal Antonescu. Purpose of the action is the liquidation of these Jews."